


cover me in rag and bone

by supernatasha



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernatasha/pseuds/supernatasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interlude: Jack and the Doctor in a bar on a distant lonely planet.<br/>"Men run because they are afraid. Time Lords run because they are brave. You would do well to remember that, Captain Jack Harkness."</p>
            </blockquote>





	cover me in rag and bone

**Author's Note:**

> TW: talk of suicide/death. spoilers.

Maybe drinking alone has its perks. Or maybe Jack is only telling himself that so he won't collapse into a messy sobbing heap on the floor under the peculiar blue sunlight of this planet.

This is how the Doctor finds the man, alone and stinking of booze, his eyes far away. His silhouette shows a slumped spine, which really should be his first clue that something's wrong. But then, he isn't quite as observant as he once was, nor is he as sensitive. There was a time when he would have stopped and considered whether he should approach Jack. Maybe he would've stood in a corner and thought it over. But now, he's reckless. 

"Hello, Jack," he says, taking a seat on the barstool.

He glances over curiously. "And who might you be?" Jack asks.

For a moment, it catches him off guard. Jack doesn't smile cheekily or flirt or wink. He just… asks. The Doctor clears his throat and says, "Well, this face is younger than the last one but I thought you'd still recognize me."

"Ah," Jack knocks back his drink in a single gulp. "Doctor. How wonderful to see you again."

He doesn't sound the least bit in wonder. The Doctor manages a cheesy and overbearing grin, pretending to look cheerful. "No wonder the TARDIS didn't want to land on this planet."

"Then why did you?"

"I was in the neighborhood," he says vaguely.

"No companion?"

"I needed a break," the Doctor shrugs, signaling for the bartender. "Companions drag their messes into the TARDIS with them like chains, all that compassion and angst. Really not in the mood for it. Now I'm free to go wherever I'd like and do whatever I want without worrying about a fragile human."

"I'm not fragile and I'm human."

"Are you?"

Jack fixes the Doctor with a nasty look, but before he can manage a reply – no doubt something scathing – the bartender joins the conversation.

"Orange juice," the Doctor smiles.

"What's an orange?" the bartender asks.

Jack orders for him instead, asking for something in a foreign guttural tongue like steel and shattered glass, a language that the Doctor feels vaguely embarrassed not to understand. After the bartender leaves, the Doctor asks, "Why didn't the TARDIS translate that?"

Jack shrugs. "This planet hasn't got oranges. And what they do have, well, there's no word for it in English, I suppose."

"Is that what we're speaking now?" the Doctor muses. "Anyway, I rather like oranges. Can't stand the stench of liquor. This tongue I have now doesn't quite have the taste for it."

"What _does_ it have the stench for, Doctor? Blood?" Jack demands.

The Doctor waits calmly for their drinks, a glowing sparkling silver poured in a steel glass for him and something reeking of alcohol for Jack, to be served and the bartender to leave before he answers, "What exactly are you accusing me of, Jack?"

"Where were you, Doctor? They came back for the children-" Jack stops, his voice breaking. He has to take a deep breath before going on, "Nobody _died._ Earth was nearly destroyed."

"Fixed point in time," the Doctor says quietly, knotting his fingers together. "I didn't go in the past and I know I never will in the future. Had I brought death back to the planet, something even more monstrous would have been unleashed, possibly something causing the destruction of the entire universe. I'm sorry, Jack."

"Is that all you have? _That's_ your apology? Seems your new face has made you more cowardly as well," Jack spits, lips drawn up in disgust. The Doctor's face hardens. He looks ridiculous, Jack thinks, hiding behind his bowtie, this god thousands of years old with a face like a petulant adolescent. Acting like he didn't have blood on his immortal hands, pretending he was another human out for a drink on a planet he'd never set foot on until today.

Finally, after a long minute of silence, he answers curtly, "You wouldn't understand, Jack."

"I am the one who defied death _millions_ of times. How many have you got? Eleven? Twelve? You wanna put a number on _death_ , Doctor? I lost Tosh, Owen, Martha, Ianto, Rose. I have murdered, Doctor, been buried alive, tortured," Jack growls, his low voice full of menace and rage. "Do you know how many times I've pulled the trigger with a barrel aimed at my skull? How many times I've jumped off canyons and splattered on the ground, feeling my bones liquefy in hopes they would never heal again? How often I've stood at the grave of people I loved and lost, wishing I was in their casket instead? Don't you dare tell me I wouldn't understand. I can feel myself slipping each time I'm back in that darkness. Less of me returns with every death and you have the nerve to sit here and tell me _I wouldn't understand?_ "

The Doctor looks away, taking a small sip of the silver liquid and fixing his gaze on the distant blue sunlight trickling through the glass ceiling. "Do you think I haven't lost anyone, Jack?"

Ignoring him, Jack goes on. "You couldn't come just once, to tell us it would be okay? To give your precious humans a few moments of peace and love? To assure us we would survive?" Jack's blue eyes well up with tears and he has to blink, tilting his head back for a few seconds, to stop their threat of overflowing, studying the same blue sunlight the Doctor holds in his vision.

"Jack…" he trails off, then reluctantly, slowly, painstakingly gets to his feet, "I should go."

"Yes, Doctor, go on. Run. Don't let the past catch up. Hide in your phone box and find yourself a nice complacent planet where they don't know how you are and what kind of misery you bring with you," Jack sounds bitter, perhaps more so than he intends to. "Find a new companion for slaughter, and find galaxies to save – or destroy – but don't ever stop running."

The Doctor leans in close and hisses, "Men run because they are afraid. Time Lords run because they are brave. You would do well to remember that, Captain Jack Harkness."

Jack blinks in surprise at his distance and abruptly says, "Maybe you _should_ just go."

They're both quiet for a moment, both simmering only millimeters apart from each other, the tension palpable and nearly sensual if it weren't so hostile. The Doctor breaks eye contact first, exhaling sharply and turns away. He's only a single step away when Jack's voice calls.

"Doctor?" Jack starts suddenly and breaks off, rubbing his hand over his chin. His lungs feel heavy with indecision, filled with too much ache. He sighs and goes on, "Doctor, I found a gray hair yesterday."

The Time Lord stares grimly back at him, hands latched onto the lapels of his coat collar like worrying at the fabric can stop any more words from Jack's throat.

"I'm aging. Did you know this would happen?"

He doesn't answer at first, eyebrows drawn together. Jack thinks he isn't going to answer at all. At last, he says, "I suspected."

"Does that mean I can die?"

"Oh, Jack. I can't tell you that. You know I can't," the Doctor whispers, lowering his face into both hands and scrubbing tiredly. When he looks up, the Doctor seems to have aged centuries. "Jack, I am truly sorry."

Jack sighs. "Doctor, at least tell me- do we meet again?"

The Doctor nods. "More than once."

"And that's only so far," Jack muses.

"Do you really want me to go, Jack?"

He has to think about that. Everyone's gone. He doesn't want to return to Earth anymore, doesn't want to find a new planet to lose himself in, doesn't care to make new associations. All he really has left is the Doctor, this Time Lord who was there when the Bad Wolf clenched Jack's soul and wrenched it back from the abyss, leaving him broken and scarred. The Time Lord who seemed to have no problem abandoning him – and indeed all of humanity – at his own whims. He looks this regeneration in the eye and answers honestly.

"Yes."

So the Doctor leaves and Jack orders another round.

The bartender says, "You've been here for hours. You want me to open you a tab?"

Jack licks his lips and nods. _What the hell, not like I have anywhere else to go._

"What's your name?"

"J-" he stops short, finding that the name won't roll off his tongue like it normally does, finding it stutter and suffocate in his throat like it had for Ianto and Gwen. Using it seems perverse. The name is a memory; it's what they called him when he was human. And he isn't anymore, is he? The Doctor just about confirmed it. It's what _he_ calls him, that immortal god wearing the skin of a human.

So instead he grabs a memory eons old, offers the bartender a smile and says, "Bo. My name is Bo."


End file.
